


Like Real People Do

by Cloudgeals



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 02:57:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3751879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cloudgeals/pseuds/Cloudgeals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Cloudgeal] The perils of promising your lover forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Real People Do

The ground is cold. He knows because he’s lying naked against it, the frost nipping at his back. For a moment he can’t breathe but then his chest heaves and he’s inhaling desperately, coughing weakly and struggling to teach his lungs how to do their job. He’s cold all over, though he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s lying naked on the solid dirt of winter. His head is pillowed on a familiar lap, and when he opens his eyes he finds Cloud’s big blues looking down at him. “There you are,” those well known lips whispered, and he pressed a rough, calloused hand to Angeal’s breastbone, just above his heart, as gentle as a kiss. 

Cloud’s looked the same since the day that they met, the same light blonde spikes, same big blue eyes. He doesn’t look a day over twenty, and that’s pushing it, but he’s far older than that. Angeal hasn’t been granted the gift of immortality the way that Cloud has, and so he’s had to deal with the way his bones grew weak and brittle. When he noticed how gray his hair was getting one morning in the bathroom mirror he fell to his knees and vomited, reminded so sharply of the last time he’d been so old, so fragile and twisted. He didn’t talk about that time in his life so when Cloud found him he’d just stayed very quiet, hauled him to his feet, and told him that he looked handsome and dignified. Angeal could barely meet his own eyes in the mirror, and he hated the afternoons they went out and his boyfriend was mistaken for his son. 

But now, they matched again. He lifted a hand to rest against the slope of Cloud’s cheek and found it smooth, no swollen gnarled knuckles. There it was, Cloud’s smile, and his boyfriend leaned down to nuzzle and kiss at Angeal’s cheeks. “I missed you,” he said in between his affections. “I don't know how to do anything without you.” His Cloud, his beautiful, stubborn Cloud, who’d been saving the Planet from it’s creatures for centuries now, long after the last of his friends had faded back into the Lifestream, long after even Jenova could go on no longer… His Cloud had never, ever known when to let go. 

“Well I’m here now,” Angeal answered, voice creaking like an old door that was rusting. 

He sat up, bending at the waist, and even though his joints were as good as new he felt so old, so weary. So tired. He should have died long ago before Cloud had even met him, and he had. You’ll be a good present for my WEAPON, the Planet told him, and chucked him back into the world of the living. The problem with being a WEAPON was that Cloud’s job was never done, and they’d been together so long that Cloud could barely exist without him. He never remembered the moments he died, usually peacefully, in his sleep, but he always remembered those few seconds between dying and living again. They were painful seconds, when his senses flipped back on one at a time, and his soul cried in sad protest. He needs you, Angeal always reminded himself. You promised you’d never leave him and he’s going to make sure you honor that promise. 

“Here forever,” Cloud mumbled, climbing into his lap and rubbing his own always smooth cheek against Angeal’s stubbled one, trying to bring the color back to his lover’s skin.

“Yes,” Angeal answered. “Here forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had a thought dear, however scary  
> About that night, the bugs, and the dirt  
> Why were you digging? What did you bury?  
> Before those hands pulled me from the earth  
> I will not ask you where you came from  
> I will not ask and neither should you  
> Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips  
> We should just kiss like real people do
> 
> \--Like Real People Do, Hozier
> 
> An older fic that I posted on ff.net like a year ago so I thought I'd put it up over here too. 
> 
> This turned out sad and creepy as hell and I like it.  
> Just Cloud being a WEAPON for the rest of forever and every time Geal dies he goes into such a state that the Planet brings him back and Cloud has to dig Geal’s body up from where buried him in the garden GOODBYE


End file.
